BEAST
★★★ OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 93 MINS
DIRECTOR Baltasar Kormákur
CAST Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley, Iyana Halley
In Beast, one character briefly wears a Jurassic Park T-shirt. Sure enough, this film about a family on a safari-gone-wrong starts with ooohs and aaahs, and, later, there’s running and screaming. Putting in the kind of gruffly amiable performance that has become his speciality, Idris Elba plays a good-hearted but emotionally troubled father; Sharlto Copley is the game warden who with him fends off a vengeful lion. The plot sails along with few surprises and a final showdown that is occasionally quite silly — yes, Idris Elba really does straight-up punch a lion in the face — but as far as trashy blockbuster entertainment goes, this is uncomplicated fun, an old-fashioned B-movie creature-feature with some CG gloss. And at 93 minutes, it doesn’t hang around longer than needed.